Confessional

TRAILER

Play
Written, Directed & Performed by: Shade Théret & Magdalena Mitterhofer
Developed in collaboration with actor Arthur Chruszcz

Sound: Arnold Trautwein
Stage Design: Magdalena Mitterhofer
Costumes: Keisuke Yoshida
Cat Costume: Good and Bad (Marina M. Kolushova, Victor Stuhlmann, Ossi Lehtonen)
Photos: Andrea Macchia

Premiere: 28 July 2024, Bolzano Danza Festival, inside Museion Bolzano, Bozen
Curatorial: Leonie Radine
Co-produced by Bolzano Danza & Museion

The play "Confessional" engages with the legacies of avant-garde theater in 1960s and 70s Italy, channeling the energies of figures like Giuliano Vasilicò and Pier Paolo Pasolini. 
This exploration is not a mere homage but a critical inquiry into the structures of power, ritual, and subjectivity that these figures interrogated. "Confessional" is steeped in existential questions:
What is the function of confession in a society that claims to have moved beyond the moral absolutism of religious doctrine? 
What new forms of confession emerge in the context of contemporary power structures? And how do these forms relate to our understanding of guilt, responsibility, and complicity? 
"Confessional" evolves through improvisation, reflecting the unpredictability and fluidity of both the creative process and the social rituals it seeks to deconstruct. 
Drawing from the gestures, movements, and symbolic resonances of Catholic rituals, the work recontextualizes these elements, exposing the ways in which they continue to exert influence within secular frameworks.